


and the knives flocked together like birds in flight

by tabine



Category: Naruto
Genre: Adult Content, Alternate Universe, Alternate Universe - Friends with Benefits, Alternate Universe - Modern Setting, Alternate Universe - Soulmates, Alternate Universe - Spies & Secret Agents, Alternate Universe - Teachers, F/M, Implied Sexual Content, Sexual Content, Stream of Consciousness
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-10-27
Updated: 2017-01-14
Packaged: 2018-08-27 09:00:17
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings, No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 15
Words: 17,074
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/8395561
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/tabine/pseuds/tabine
Summary: A collection of various NejiTen drabbles and vignettes and maybe a few prompt fills too, sometimes. Welcome to NejiTen Hell. [This collection has been discontinued.]





	1. the evidence of sloppy couch makeouts

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> SnapChat, alcohol, and friends in combination can either be a very good or a very bad thing.

> **the evidence of sloppy couch makeouts**  
>  **Characters** **:** Hyuuga Neji, Tenten  
>  **Pairings:** NejiTen  
>  **Warnings:** Do implied sloppy couch makeouts and the consumption of alcohol count?  
>  **Rating:** T+  
>  **Prompt:** _Imagine your OTP aren't together, and go to the same party and get really drunk beyond belief. In their drunken haze, they make out on the couch, and get really, really touchy with each other. Neither remember what happened the morning after, but the snapchat stories they see from their friends tell them all they need to know. (From the[otpprompts](http://otpprompts.tumblr.com) blog on tumblr.)_  
>  **Word count:** 639  
>  **Summary** : SnapChat, alcohol, and friends in combination can either be a very good or a very bad thing.   
>  **Notes:**  Flustered!Neji is way too much fun to write, honestly. Also, I don't think all the fills in this sort-of compendium will ever be quite as serious as the title implies, but I was struggling to think of an appropriate title for this collection when this came to mind, and it sounded far too pretty not to use, and if you happen to have a prompt you'd like to see filled in this collection, please feel free to leave it in the comments or over on [tumblr](http://tabine.tumblr.com/ask). :D  
>  **Posted:**  Thursday 27 October 2016 

* * *

Neji knows something is up when he wakes up shirtless and disoriented on the hideous old orange couch in Naruto's basement with a sore neck and an even greater throbbing in his skull. He blinks, realizes he's definitely hungover (not a frequent occurrence, but one that he generally makes sure not to happen for good reason) and tries desperately to remember the events of the night before he has to hear it secondhand from one of his friends as he tries to move, turn his head, in order to assess the whatever damage may have been done —

— only to bite back a surprised yell because an equally disoriented Tenten is curled against him and looking up at him in utter shock, and _oh gods is that her chest pushed up against him good thing she's wearing a shirt but shit she is definitely not wearing a bra and also where the hell are her pants_.

Speaking of pants: Neji's jeans seem to have suddenly become uncomfortably tight upon the realization of his current predicament concerning Tenten and the couch (not that falling asleep drunk in last night's clothes — where is his shirt, anyway, and one of his socks is missing, too — and contorted to fit on a too-small couch with another person (whose neck he just now notices is covered in rather telltale bruising) isn't uncomfortable enough on its own) and there is no way she doesn't notice it, because she suddenly tenses up, her eyes flickering down quickly before meeting his. She swallows audibly (and, no, he absolutely does _not_ like watching how her throat moves as she does so) and her voice is so raspy and hoarse that he almost loses it when she speaks. "Um. Good morning to you, too."

Neji hates that it takes him a moment to figure out how work his jaw again, and another to find his voice because he's so distracted by the flush steadily creeping up Tenten's cheeks, before he finally responds. "Did you have a good night?" he asks, his own voice husky from sleep and disuse.

"Apparently," she whispers, and the way she says it makes Neji's heart plummet, nearly to the growing discomfort in his jeans, which is _really_ not helping the situation much. "Have you, uh, checked your SnapChat stories yet?"

"I don't use SnapChat," he replies as evenly as he can manage.

"But you have one," Tenten points out, and Neji can't really argue with how she knows that because she's the reason he has one at all in the first place.

Neji also doesn't really know what to say when he finally finds his phone (it had fallen in between the cushions of the couch at some point the previous night, along with Tenten's bra) and watches the videos of him and Tenten very eagerly wrapped around each other on the couch on their friends' My Stories. Kiba's and Ino's in particular are especially interesting, if only because the former explains the mystery of his shirt and the latter the disappearance of Tenten's pants (both of which they find a few minutes later behind the couch, though his shirt continues to remain elusive), and by the time they watch all ten — _ten!_ — My Stories that feature them in some way or another, Hyuuga Neji is, for the first time in his life, absolutely speechless.

At least he knows what to expect when the smells of breakfast wafting down the basement steps lures them upstairs to the kitchen, where the rest of their friends (the ones who had stayed for breakfast, at least) greet them with catcalls and innuendos, and when Neji drops Tenten off at her apartment an hour later, he's pleased to discover that she is more than willing to continue their previous activities from the night before away from their friends' smartphones and SnapChat accounts.


	2. i could be a morning person for you

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Tenten swears the reason she openly stares at her apartment building's new tenant when he goes running every morning is because of the way his gastrocnemii and quadriceps and gluteal muscles look in his jogging shorts just screams how perfect his muscle definition is. Which, in hindsight, is probably way creepier than just admitting she finds him attractive.

> **i could be a morning person for you**  
>  **Characters:** Hyuuga Neji, Tenten  
>  **Pairings:** NejiTen  
>  **Warnings:** Implied sex and also Tenten shamelessly creeping on half-naked Neji while also being a nerd.  
>  **Rating:** T+/M  
>  **Prompt:** _you jog shirtless past my house every morning au_   _(courtesy of tumblr)_  
>  **Word count:** 1076  
>  **Summary:**  Tenten swears the reason she openly stares at her apartment building's new tenant when he goes running every morning is because of the way his gastrocnemii and quadriceps and gluteal muscles look in his jogging shorts just screams how perfect his muscle definition is. Which, in hindsight, is probably way creepier than just admitting she finds him attractive.  
>  **Notes:** This is actually one of the original openings I'd had in mind for "The Secret Life of Teachers" before it went off the way it did in a direction I had not originally planned. Still, I liked it too much not to utilize somehow, and so now we have, well. This. Also, I'd be remiss if I didn't confess that Tenten admiring Neji's muscles in terms of their scientific names is something I do as well. Heh. Thanks for reading. Feedback, as always, is appreciated!  
>  **Posted:** Thursday 27 October 2016

* * *

Under normal circumstances, Tenten is most decidedly _not_ a morning person.

This proves to be a bit of a problem when you're a high school biology teacher, of course, but over the years she's learned that getting up early does have a few advantages: there's much less traffic, for one, and there aren't as many people up and about to glare at her old blue pickup and the noises it makes as she drives the familiar route to the local high school. The lines at drive-throughs and gas stations are considerably shorter, too, or entirely nonexistent, and she's gone to the Tim Hortons down the block so regularly on her way to work that the people who work there usually have her order (a large black coffee, a chocolate chip muffin, and a toasted everything bagel with the garden vegetable cream cheese spread) ready by the time they see her truck pull into the lot.

It's incredibly convenient, to say the least.

Even the first year she teaches summer school proves to have its own advantages, she learns a few weeks into the first term. There's a new tenant in the apartment above hers, and Tenten finds out very quickly that he's not only the absolute definition of a morning person — she can already hear him bustling around in his apartment when her alarm goes off at five-thirty-five — but he's rather active, too, and likes to go for early morning jogs wearing shorts, running shoes, and very little else.

The fact that he's incredibly good-looking, too, certainly doesn't hurt.

Gradually, she begins adjusting her schedule, timing her departure so that she meets him in the stairwell as they make their way to the ground floor; she generally never takes the elevator unless she can help it, and a part of her is pleased to note that he's probably the same way, even though they don't really talk much during the descent. Not that she particularly minds, of course, because she's usually going over lesson plans in her head while trying to consciously not stare at him too much, which is a struggle in and of itself simply because of how _attractive_ he is and how distractingly beautiful those latissimus dorsi and sternocleidomastoids are, and more often than not he's got his headphones in (and she wonders what sort of music he listens to while he runs: she's partial to classic rock, but he seems to be more of a classical music sort of fellow), and trying to multitask while looking at a specimen of muscle definition of that caliber is becoming increasingly difficult.

It occurs to her, at some point, that what she's doing — that is to say, forcing herself to become slightly more of a morning person in order to unapologetically gawk at his deliciously shirtless form in close proximity — is potentially just the _tiniest_ bit creepy, so when Tenten comes home from the gym one Sunday evening toward the end of July to see him attempting to carry five large bags of groceries, lock his car, and pick up his wallet from where it's fallen on the ground all at the same time, she feels the least she can do is offer her assistance in return for shamelessly staring at him all the time.

She's careful to make sure she doesn't say that last part, though.

He watches her for a moment (and she wonders, momentarily, whether it's a trick of the fading daylight or if his eyes really _are_ the color of pale starlight and lavender) and Tenten is about to come up with some half-baked excuse to go before she embarrasses herself even further when he smiles at her.

"Thank you," he says, and Tenten's stomach does a strange little half-twist in response.

She follows him into the building, and they're on the stairs between the second and third floor when she realizes they've never properly introduced themselves to one another. So Tenten says as much before officially introducing herself around an armful of groceries to the man beside her.

"Neji," comes his response, on the tail of a smile and an amused sound he makes in the back of his throat. "It's a pleasure to finally meet you."

And Tenten absolutely does _not_ feel a thrill run through her at the word _pleasure_. Tomorrow is Monday, she reminds herself firmly, and she still has papers to finish grading that she promised she'd hand back tomorrow, and she cannot let herself be distracted by the maybe-implications her libido thinks it hears in his low voice.

They're at his apartment on the sixth floor before she quite realizes it, and after he unlocks the door she follows him inside without a second thought. The layout and orientation of Neji's apartment is identical to her own, and after she sets her cumbersome gym bag down in the living room (it makes carrying the groceries through the cramped space easier, she rationalizes) she automatically makes her way to the kitchen to set the groceries in her arms on the counter as though she were in the comfort and privacy of her own home.

Tenten makes the most of her time, taking boxes of pasta and cans of soup — all organic, she notes — from the paper bagging and placing them on the linoleum countertop despite having not been asked, until she feels the solid warmth of a strong, muscled chest (those _pectorals_ , though!) against her back. Her breath hitches.

"Thank you," Neji says again, and this time the words fan out across the back of her neck with the warmth of his breath; she shivers at the sensation. He rests his hands on the counter, effectively trapping her between his arms. "How might I show my appreciation?"

For a moment, Tenten debates turning to face him, but decides instead that she rather likes their current position. "Dinner would be nice," she suggests. "I haven't had anything to eat in _hours_."

Neji falls silent, as if debating her suggestion, and a heartbeat later he's leaning over her, the weight of his body bending her over the counter, and his lips are pressed firmly to the suddenly not-so-steady pulse point of her carotid artery. "Maybe later," he murmurs against her skin. "I'd like to collect my prize for waking up before dawn every day for the past six weeks, first."

Realization hits her, then, when Neji turns her around and presses his mouth against hers, and Tenten all but comes undone.


	3. those darn sternocleidomastoids

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> In which Tenten discovers that the universe must definitely hate her, Neji is a pompous asshat, and Ino and Temari are Totally Shipping That.

> ****those darn sternocleidomastoids  
>  Characters: Tenten, Hyuuga Neji, Yamanaka Ino, Temari  
>  **Pairings:** NejiTen  
>  **Warnings:** Coarse language, consumption of alcohol, and implied sex.  
>  **Rating:** T+/M  
>  **Prompt:** High school teachers AU.  
>  **Word count:** 1396  
>  **Summary:** In which Tenten discovers that the universe must definitely hate her, Neji is a pompous asshat, and Ino and Temari are Totally Shipping That.  
>  **Notes:** Much like the previous chapter, this was one of the intial versions of "The Secret Life of Teachers" that I wrote — tone-wise, I prefer it much more than the current story (which you should totally check out if you're interested in a modern day NejiTen AU of "we're teachers who work at the same high school and also neighbors and everyone things we're dating but we're not even though hey btw I think I might be falling in love with you oh snap I bet this is why everyone thinks we're together huh" types of shenanigans) but the plot reared its ugly head way sooner than I anticipated, hence why this got sent to the drabble collection instead of being a standalone fic of its own. Also, a lot of you commented on this last chapter, but Neji being smooth AF is quickly being one of my favorite things ever even though he's most definitely a giant dork about anything remotely sexual ever (which is why even smooth mofo!Neji is always mentally screaming when trying to be sexy lmao). By the way, if you want to punch me in the face for all the anatomy references I've been making in the various facets of what I am now officially dubbing "the Teacher Universe", I don't blame you — is it any surprise, then, that being a high school biology teacher is actually my profession of choice? Though sternocleidomastoids and the musculature of the forearm and back are undeniably attractive, I think, so.  
>  **Posted:** Friday 28 October 2016

* * *

From the moment she sees him in the school library for the district-required teacher's meeting that marks the end of summer vacation and the start of the new school year, Tenten decides that she doesn't care much for the newest addition to the staff of Konohagakure High School.

Or, she tells herself willfully, striding past him without making eye contact or acknowledging him at all in any way as she makes her way to the other side of the library, she _won't_.

Sure, he's tall and attractive, with a voice that could melt butter, and also pretty much _exactly_ her type (which she is already well aware of, courtesy of prior experience in the alleyway behind a local club a few nights ago) but all of that hardly matters because at the end of the day, Hyuuga Neji is nothing but a haughty, pompous, arrogant _prick_.

Perched casually on one of the long tables near the printers, she watches him carefully as he introduces himself to the other teachers, eyes narrowed and lips pressed tightly together as she pointedly ignores the looks Ino and Temari are giving her from the other side of the library. Of all the people Principal Umino could have hired to fill in the recently-opened position of physics teacher following the previous teacher's retirement at the end of the previous school year, he naturally _had_ to pick the one person she wouldn't have minded not seeing ever again for the rest of her life, and Tenten glares into her iced coffee and wonders what she'd done to incur the wrath of the universe this time.

Which is probably a lot, actually, now that she thinks about it. Not that she really cares.

By now, Neji has already gone to sit back down by himself near the librarian's desk, and Iruka's retaken the floor to tell them all something about working hard for the upcoming school year, but Tenten's not really listening. Instead, she finds herself lost in thoughts and memories that taste like cheap beer and waffle fries as she half-listens to Iruka's speech and nods along where she knows she's supposed to (it's more-or-less the same start-of-the-school-year speech he's used for the last four years), and the moment the principal decides they've finished going over everything the district said they were supposed to cover, she's pushing herself off the table and gathering her things in an attempt to leave as soon as possible without drawing attention to her unease; she has a reputation to protect, after all. Unfortunately, she isn't fast enough.

Neji's beside her so suddenly that Tenten almost runs into his chest — a very nice and solid and defined chest, she remembers — when she turns to leave. He's wearing khakis, she notes, and a dark blue polo shirt that looks very good on him, especially with the topmost button left open like that. He's tied his hair up in a low bun at the base of his neck, too (which makes sense, considering that it's August and the Konohagakure summer is still burning in earnest outside despite the air conditioning of the building, and also helps to just really highlight how nice his sternocleidomastoids are) and she hates herself for still finding him attractive in any way whatsoever. It doesn't help that they're the last ones to leave the library (she curses Ino and Temari and the universe at large for leaving them alone together) and she's disconcerted to realize that she's nervous about what may or may not happen now that they're alone and in close proximity to one another.

(She still remembers what had happened the last time that had been the case — and, yes, alcohol may have been involved, then, but she thinks that by now the point is fairly moot.)

"Tenten," he begins simply. His expression is one of polite neutrality, and the look in his eyes utterly unreadable as he falls into step beside her. "How have you been?"

She shrugs, takes a long, slow sip of her coffee. Most of the ice has melted, by now, and the drink in her hand is now a disgusting concoction of watered-down caramel and caffeine, but at least the action gives her something to do that has nothing to do with looking up at the man beside her. "Busy," she replies vaguely. "Got a lot going on."

"Mm." They're walking down the long hallway that leads past the main office, toward the science wing of the school building, and Tenten mentally curses when she realizes that he'll now be just a few doors down the hall from hers for the better part of the year. "I didn't know you worked here," he says, glancing down at her.

Tenten scowls. "I generally don't make a habit of telling my one-night stands about my professional life. Besides, as I'm sure you're aware, the last thing a teacher wants to think about before the start of the school year is school itself." The corners of her mouth tighten as she looks away, and she adds as an afterthought, "I was also a bit distracted, if you remember — it was a bit to hard to talk, anyway, with your dick in my mouth and all."

He makes an amused sort of noise in the back of his throat, then. "I had heard you were teaching summer school," he continues, and when she pins him with a questioning glare clarifies, "Iruka told me."

She huffs. "Yeah, well, it's a good way to make some extra cash," she responds noncommittally, "and they're always looking for biology teachers for summer school." She absolutely does _not_ feel like a specimen for the microscope being prepped for examination under the appraisal of his cool, pale gaze. "Teaching may be one of the most noble professions out there, but it's definitely not the most lucrative."

Neji crosses his arms over his chest, and she has to consciously will herself to not acknowledge the way the action brings her attention to his biceps. "Wise words," he tells her, and finally looks away as they enter the science wing.

Tenten stops outside her classroom, rests her free hand on her hip. "I am a wealth of wisdom and a fountain of knowledge," she counters, "and also own a ton of dissecting kits that I make sure are always in optimal condition, so if you're going to mess with me, you're doing it at your own risk." She even takes a sip of the remnants of her watered-down iced coffee for good measure.

(She used to wonder if her reputation among the student body for always being a little too excited on dissection days was actually warranted or not — now she just accepts it as cold, unchangeable fact.)

Neji raises an eyebrow, the ghost of another smirk playing about his lips. "Noted," he says. His eyes never leave hers, and she can feel the gooseflesh rising on her skin.

"Asshole," Tenten mutters, just loud enough for him to hear, before turning on her heel and storming into her classroom without waiting for his response. She shuts the door behind her, and locks it for good measure, and spends the next six hours determinedly distracting herself from the thought of perfect musculature and pretty silvery-lilac eyes and a pair of sinful lips by getting her classroom ready for the upcoming school year.

* * *

**To: Ino, Temari**  
**From: Tenten  
** _Do either of your professional adult brains have any advice on getting through the school year when your last one night stand who you barfed all over after sex works in the classroom literally two doors down from you?_

 **To: Tenten, Temari**  
**From: Ino  
** _depends, would you do him again if you had a chance?_

 **To: Ino, Temari**  
**From: Tenten  
** _Unfortunately, yes_

 **To: Tenten, Temari**  
**From: Ino  
** _then good luck and treat yourself to a bottle of wine when you get home_

 **To: Ino, Temari**  
**From: Tenten  
** _What about you temmy? Any ideas in that big beautiful math brain of yours?_

 **To: Tenten, Ino**  
**From: Temari  
** _You could always just sleep with him again._

 **To: Ino, Temari**  
**From: Tenten  
** _I hate you both you guys are no help at all some friends you are_

 **To: Tenten, Temari**  
**From: Ino  
** _awww don't worry babe we love you too!_

 **To: Ino, Tenten**  
**From: Temari**  
_< 3_


	4. because i could not stop for death

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> It is the night before war.

 

> **because i could not stop for death**  
>  Characters: Tenten, Hyuuga Neji,  
>  **Pairings:** NejiTen  
>  **Warnings:** Implied sex, [vague] canon compliance.  
>  **Rating:** T+/M  
>  **Prompt:** N/A  
>  **Word count:** 913  
>  **Summary:** It is the night before war.  
>  **Notes:** I actually already posted this to tumblr about a week or two ago, but I figured I could add this here, too, just to consolidate all of these into one place. Also, I might have been moved very close to tears while writing this, so. Yeah. Title courtesy of the poem by Emily Dickinson of the same name.  
>  **Posted:** Saturday 29 October 2016

* * *

Tenten has never been a stranger to death; none of them are. This is their life, after all, their choice and burden to bear, and to live it was to accept it.

But it is the night before they leave for war, and as Death stares up at her from its position on the damp grass beneath their knees, Tenten feels a weight, cold and heavy, settle low in her belly. It worries her, and she doesn't look up at the man sitting beside her as she leans forward to gather her cards.

They have never been wrong, after all.

"It's not really that shocking," she murmurs, shuffling the cards idly before slipping them back into the pouch at her waist. "We're ninja, and this is war."

Beside her, Neji shifts, and Tenten's breath hitches in her throat — it always does, whenever he touches her like this — when his rough, calloused palm brushes against her cheek, along her jaw and the column of her neck, until it comes to rest at the hollow of her throat. One of his fingers traces the sharp edge of her collar bone, and she trembles a bit at the intimacy of it all.

"Yes," he replies, tilting his head down to look her in the eye. "It is."

When he kisses her a moment later, Neji's lips are so gentle against her own that Tenten wants to cry.

It does not take long for her to tangle her fingers in his hair, to pull him down to lay beside her, nor for his clever fingers to make their way beneath her clothes and brush feather-light against her skin, and when he pulls away from her for a moment, dark hair spread across the grass and the moonlight shining in his pearl-like eyes, she thinks she has never seen him look more beautiful.

Tenten tells him just as much, and Neji's only response is to smile at her in that gentle, knowing way she's grown to treasure.

"How interesting." His breath is warm against her cheek. "I was just thinking the same about you."

She remembers the way Death had looked at her, empty eyes unseeing and all-knowing all at once, and then she is kissing him again, before she can put a name to the feeling that settles like a vice around her heart, before the dark curtain of night is burned away by bloody-bright dawn and they are marching away, yesterday's children sent off to war, and it occurs to her, then, that she no longer knows what the future might bring.

And for the first time in her life, she thinks she might be afraid for it.

"I think," Tenten begins, her voice a whisper against his throat. She's not sure how to to tell him — she isn't even sure what she wants to say — and she lets the words die on her tongue before she tries again. "I think — Neji, I — "

Neji wraps an arm around her waist, presses his lips to her shoulder, and Tenten does not try to speak again; he knows, and that, she thinks as she removes the metal and fabric covering his forehead, kisses the seal that mars the skin there, is enough for her.

Love is not a word that passes easily between them. It is a fragile, tiny thing, with barely-fledged wings, and they both know it will be some time yet before either of them is able to put a name to this — the stolen moments in hidden corners, awkward fumbling and sounds and sensations (strange and new and exciting) in the dark, secret smiles and knowing looks and the knowledge that _they_ are nothing more than _them_ — but for now, this is enough.

The hours pass, and in time night gives way to the first blooms of a red October dawn. It is with no small amount of reluctance that they pull away from one another, as lingering touches and sidelong glances give way to rigid shoulders and hardened hearts, until they are no longer themselves but perfect soldiers set to lay down their lives for the sake of their mission — _win_ — standing side-by-side in the growing light of the rising sun.

In the distance, they hear a shout: a summons to line up, the order to move out. With it comes sudden understanding.

"Stay alive, Tenten," Neji tells her, and she wonders at the emotion she hears in his voice, the sour note of uncertainty and doubt that curls around the words. "Stay alive, and come back."

Tenten does not cry when she wraps her arms around Neji's neck and kisses him, when she buries her face in the rough material of his flak jacket and wishes that the world would stop turning, if only for a moment, if only to let this moment stretch on forever. "Yeah," she replies, before looking up at him, memorizing every detail about him in that instant even as the vice around her heart squeezes tighter still, until she thinks it might burst from the pressure. "You too. I'll never forgive you if you don't."

If her voice wavers, cracks at the end, Neji says nothing. He presses his lips to her hair briefly, and then, all too soon, he is pulling away.

"I love you, you know," he whispers, and disappears a moment later.

Her heart shatters, then, and she leaves the broken pieces where Death had watched her the night before.

 


	5. the stroke of twelve

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> The best way to start off the new year is with sex, obviously.

> **the stroke of twelve**  
>  **Characters:** Hyuuga Neji, Tenten  
>  **Pairings:** NejiTen  
>  **Warnings:** Implied sex, sexual situations, mild language, alcohol.  
>  **Rating:** T+/M  
>  **Prompt:** "Friends with benefits AU." — keroRiBBIT  
>  **Word count:** 845  
>  **Summary:** The best way to start off the new year is with sex, obviously.  
>  **Notes:** Even though this is short (it's after one in the morning, here, and I need to be up again in about four hours or so — this is also why this hasn't been edited lmao) I couldn't pass up the opportunity to write this when I still had the idea so fresh in my head — I may or may not continue this later, but. We shall see.  
>  **Posted:** Monday 31 October 2016

* * *

The first time they sleep together, it is New Year's Eve: they are both drunk, horny, and utterly sick of greeting another year alone, so when Tenten asks if she can kiss him at midnight, Neji doesn't really think much of it when he tells her, "Why not?"

Of course, he isn't expecting her to kiss him quite like _that_ — a combination of lips and teeth and tongue that leave him heady and wanting for _more_ — when the clock strikes twelve and the ball drops and the clinking of glasses of champagne and shouts of _Happy new year, assholes!_ resound around the room, and he thanks whatever deity is looking out for him that their friends are too wrapped up in their own activities to pay them any mind when he kisses her again in the relative privacy of the darkest corner of the club, and outside against a brick wall, in the cab while panting out terse directions to his building at the driver, against the door of his apartment as he tries to fumble for his keys in his pocket while her legs are wrapped around his hips and his jeans are becoming all the more uncomfortable by the minute.

He thanks the deity in question again when she's lying naked in his bed and he's tearing through the drawers of his bathroom for even a single condom only to find _six_ foil packets instead, and he blindly grabs the lot (he doesn't even close the drawer in question in his haste to get back to her, though he does remember to turn off the light before leaving the bathroom) before he returns, and once more when he finally slides into her because she is warm and wet and wanting, and when Tenten whispers a breathy, "Happy New Year, Neji." in his ear when he comes, he thinks that if there were a heaven on earth, it would be _this_.

* * *

"So, I think we should sleep together."

This is the first thing Tenten tells him over breakfast the next morning, and she says it so matter-of-factly that Neji almost agrees to it without consciously mulling it over. He catches himself, however, as he's flipping over a chocolate chip pancake (he doesn't care much for sweet things, but it's a tradition Hinata has insisted on for years — "You can't start off the new year right and expect good things if you don't begin with something sweet!" — and it's too ingrained in him to stop now) and attempts to cover his momentary lapse in attention by mixing the remaining batter with a little more force than is probably required.

"Why do you say that?" he asks, and his palms are starting to sweat so much it's a miracle that the whisk doesn't slip out of his hands entirely.

She shrugs, then, looks into her steaming mug coffee as though the secrets of the universe could be found in its black and bitter depths. "Last night was _really_  good," she supplies after a moment, "and this morning was even better."

Neji ignores the sudden warmth burning the tips of his ears, pooling low in his belly as he remembers the way he'd woken her up that morning (with his mouth against her, his head between her thighs, and her fingers tangled in his hair, nails a pleasant sort of pain against his scalp as she pulled him ever closer, and then the heat of her hovering above him before she had taken him into her fully) and fixes her with as nonchalant a look as he can manage.

"Oh?" he asks, and it's clearly not nearly as nonchalant as he had hoped, because Tenten looks decidedly smug and somewhat embarrassed by his response.

"Well, _yeah_ ," she says. "And I'm not just saying that because I haven't gotten laid in over a year, either."

His ego certainly approves of that, to say the least, and he can't help but smirk a bit at that. "Consider it mutual," he tells her in turn. "I, ah. Rather enjoyed myself. I wouldn't oppose this if it were to happen again."

Tenten brightens up at that. "Would you oppose it if it were to happen after breakfast?" she asks coyly, cutting into the stack of pancakes before her.

"I can't say that I would," he replies carefully, setting the mixing bowl back on the counter and removing the last pancake and turning off the stove, "but only if you can guarantee that I won't regret it."

She grins at him, then, and it is easily the most innocently seductive thing he thinks he's every seen. "Judging by the number of condoms you've got left, I've got about four ways to prove that you won't regret it."

"Do you really need all four to prove yourself?" he asks, then, before he can stop himself.

Her grin widens. "I doubt I'll need all four," she begins, "but I wouldn't be opposed to it."

Neji raises an eyebrow at that. "Better eat up — you'll need your strength."

And she does nothing but smile confidently back. "Indeed."


	6. searching for that piece of me

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> There are lots of ways to find a soulmate: here is an example of one.

> ****searching for that piece of me  
>  **Characters:** Hyuuga Neji, Tenten, Hyuuga Hanabi, Hyuuga Hinata  
>  **Pairings:** NejiTen  
>  **Warnings:** N/A  
>  **Rating:** K  
>  **Prompt:** A combination of soulmate AU prompts: _(1) the one where you don't know your soulmate until you touch them_ ; _(2) the one where your soulmate's name is written on your skin in their handwriting_ ; _(3)_ _the one where you get a mark on your body where your soulmate first touched you_ ; _(4) the one with multiple/different kinds of soulmates for different aspects of your life_. Requested by **keroRiBBIT** , who had simply asked for a non-angsty soulmate AU — hope you enjoy this!  
>  **Word count:** 996  
>  **Summary:** There are lots of ways to find a soulmate: here is an example of one.  
>  **Notes:** I sort of gave up on caring about whether this was in-character or not, as you can see. I also played a lot with this in terms of tone, too (because I was explicitly asked to not make this fill angsty, and of course angst is what I immediately tend to default to 98% of the time I get a prompt, so a happy medium had to be reached) so I apologize in advance if this sounds weird because of that. Also, I practically adore the Hyuugas being beautiful, precious siblings, so I naturally had to indulge in that, here, and also I never really do cute/sappy fics or endings — the only reason I did so here was because the this story probably would have ended very sadly if I did not. Heh. (Thought that being said, I might be tempted to do more for this AU, too, though as of now I'm not planning on it. But, we shall see.)  
>  **Posted:** Thursday 3 November 2016

* * *

It happens as he's getting off the subway one dull gray Thursday morning in November on his way to work: he's stepping off the platform, adjusting the strap of the messenger bag slung over his shoulder and shoving his hands into the pockets of his coat in an effort to stave of the late autumn chill that seeps down into the station, when a woman walking quickly in the opposite direction bumps into him, her elbow knocking awkwardly against his ribcage as they attempt to avoid each other in the crowded mezzanine. The contact doesn't hurt, not really, but it's enough to make them both stumble a bit, and a moment more for each to regain their balance.

"Sorry," the woman manages to say, and a moment later she is gone, swallowed by the crowd before he gets a chance to respond.

(But he meets her gaze briefly, for only the briefest of moments, before she disappears, and in the harsh fluorescent lighting of the station he can't quite tell if her eyes are gray or brown or something in between.)

So he shrugs and continues on his way, and thinks nothing of the incident at the station until he's getting ready for bed that evening and notices a name scrawled neatly into the small, soft space between his ribs, just inches beneath his heart, and he finds himself wondering if he'll ever see her again.

* * *

He decides to keep the incident, and the name written in crisp, bold letters between his ribs, so unlike the fine lines and graceful cursive of his own hand, to himself. It is not as if is skin hadn't been marked with other names before — Hinata's name curves delicately around his left wrist, while Hanabi's is a sharp, dark tattoo against the pale skin behind his right ear — but there is something about this new name and the stranger with ochre-gray eyes that it belongs to that makes him want to keep it a secret only he knows of, if only for a little while longer.

A month passes in this way (and every day, he finds himself searching for her during his daily commute on the subway, though he has had no success in finding her yet) until Hanabi stumbles upon his secret the day she comes home following the end of her first semester at university.

"Who's that?" she asks as she sprawls across his bed, pointing to his chest and looking at him expectantly. "I know I was gone for a while, but I didn't think you'd find another soulmate while I wasn't here."

He merely shrugs in response, searches through his closet for a shirt that his uncle would deem appropriate for the business meeting he's to attend that afternoon. He's just showered, and his hair is damp and cool and heavy against the back of his neck, in the space between his shoulder blades, and smells faintly of citrus and mint. "I don't know," he replies simply. "I bumped into someone on the subway a few weeks ago, but I haven't seen her once since then."

Hanabi sits up a little bit straighter, at that, and eyes him curiously. "Oh?" she asks. "Is she pretty?"

"I don't remember," comes his reply as he slips one arm through a sleeve of the deep blue button-down shirt he's selected, and then the other. And then he pauses, fingers brushing against the smooth plastic buttons idly. "She has beautiful eyes."

At that, Hanabi snickers. "I never thought I'd live to see the day where I heard you say anything like that," she says, rolling off the bed and landing on the floor on all fours, not at all unlike a cat, before straightening up and sauntering to the door. "Let me know how it goes, though!" she says over her shoulder before she leaves, and he merely sighs, turns back to the mirror to check his appearance, and mentally review the information pertinent to the upcoming meeting once more.

(He does not think about her again until he's waiting on the platform for his train home, when something compels him to look up from his phone long enough to see what he thinks is a familiar figure boarding the train on the other side of the mezzanine, and he wonders if he's simply imaging the warmth that surges across his chest, then.)

* * *

Parties are not the sort of thing he frequents, but when Hinata asks him to join her at a friend's New Year's party , he can't find it in himself to deny her. So he agrees, and when they arrive at the party later that evening, he's touched that she spends her time, in turn, alternating between him and at the side of the get-together's rambunctious host.

"Don't worry about me," he tells her softly, and nods in Naruto's general direction. "Go ahead. I'll be fine."

And this is how he finds himself sitting alone on the couch a few minutes later, sipping idly from the can of beer in his hand and passing the time until midnight by check his email and reading the news on his phone. It doesn't bother him, really, until he notices someone standing in front of him, and he looks up, and his pale eyes meet the same pair of ochre-gray ones that have been at the forefront of his mind for weeks.

"Hey there, Neji," she says with a smile as she holds her arm out toward him, and he can see the familiar loops and letters of his name written on the inside of her elbow. "How're you doing?"

He smiles at her, then, and stands up, lifts up the hem of his shirt (and for once in his life he doesn't really care if it's appropriate behavior or not) and shows her where she's made her own mark. "Better, now, Tenten," he replies without a moment's hesitation, "now that I've finally got to meet you."


	7. into the unknown

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> It's a Wednesday night and she has work and class early tomorrow morning, but going home with the pretty stranger at the bar seems like a pretty good idea, maybe.

> ****into the unknown  
>  **Characters:** Hyuuga Neji, Tenten, Yamanaka Ino, Haruno Sakura, Rock Lee  
>  **Pairings:** NejiTen  
>  **Warnings:** Alcohol consumption, stream-of-consciousness.  
>  **Rating:** T  
>  **Prompt:** N/A  
>  **Word count:** 1057  
>  **Summary:** It's a Wednesday night and she has work and class early tomorrow morning, but going home with the pretty stranger at the bar seems like a pretty good idea, maybe.  
>  **Notes:** I actually wrote this way back in September, promptly forgot about it, and then remembered it when I was looking through folders for some notes I'd made earlier for my current National Novel Writing Month project, and since I completely forgot where I had originally wanted to go with this, I decided to ultimately end up posting it here in its more-or-less incomplete form, so. Apologies in advance for potential suck-itude.  
>  **Posted:** Sunday 6 November 2016

* * *

This is how it begins: strobing lights and pounding bass, the countertop sticky against her elbows as she leans against the bar and smirks up at the guy standing beside her. He's pretty good-looking, she thinks while taking a pensive sip of her rum and Coke, though not really her usual type, and maybe it's the alcohol talking — though, she isn't drinking all that much tonight, honestly, she's got to be at work early tomorrow — but she finds herself raising herself onto her toes, her mouth now perfectly level with his ear all the same to tell him exactly as much. And if she happens to misgauge the distance, so that her lips brush against his earlobe with every syllable uttered, well. She'll just call it a happy accident.

 _Or maybe not_ , she thinks when she pulls away and settles her weight back against the bar, scanning his expression for any hint of a reaction to her insinuation, only to find his face as impassive as the surface of a lake frozen over in the dead of winter. It's not that bad a comparison to make, either: his eyes are certainly pale enough to make it work.

For the first time since she set foot in the packed, sweltering club that night, Tenten shivers. The worst part is, she can't quite figure out exactly why.

(Tenten knows she's been out of the game for a while, but she really hopes she didn't read his signals wrong — Ino would hold it over her for a month if she found out, and Tenten isn't sure she can handle that.)

And that's the moment when realization hits, and Tenten sets her glass down on the countertop with a decisive _chink_ before she can make this situation any worse. She attempts to change the flow of the conversation, and cranes her neck to look at the dance floor behind her as well as she is able to — it's better than looking at his cold, pretty eyes and stoic expression, and Tenten really hopes she isn't blushing.

"You came with Hinata, right? I just realized I haven't had a chance to talk to her at all tonight." She's trying desperately to change the topic, and so doesn't mention that's because Hinata and Naruto disappeared into the crowd of people milling about the dance floor shortly after arriving, mostly because she knows that neither of them have class tomorrow morning and Tenten doesn't want to follow that train of thought to its logical conclusion, and only slightly because of the presence and identity of the man beside her.

But then the presence shifts, warm and solid and firm against her back, and a soft, low voice murmurs from somewhere just behind her right ear — "What _is_ your usual type, then?" — and she's worrying her bottom lip between her teeth with her voice suddenly caught in her throat and wishing she hadn't put her hair up tonight because the way his voice sounds and feels against her skin makes her want to do all sorts of things to Hyuuga Neji, and Tenten finds herself growing increasingly flustered and concerned over the fact that those are thoughts she really _does_ want to see through all the way to the end.

He's not even touching her and still it's hard to think rationally, with him so close, but somehow she's able to have the presence of mind to turn her head back to face him. "I need to find my roommate," she tells him, hoping-but-not-really that _this_ might be the deal breaker for him. "He's around here, somewhere. I need to find him."

 _A deal breaker for what?_ asks a voice in the corner of her mind that sounds suspiciously like Ino.

Tenten ignores it resolutely.

To his credit, Neji doesn't move a muscle when she turns back to look at him, even though their faces are level and barely a few inches apart, nor does he seem to react negatively at the mention of her roommate. For one long moment he simply watches her, and Tenten can't seem to shake the feeling that he is not only looking _at_ her, but _through_ her as well, all the way to the core of her being. It's intense, and a bit unsettling, and Tenten becomes more than a bit concerned when she realizes she actually _likes_ it.

And then Neji straightens, uses his height to his advantage to scan the crowd around them before leaning back down to talk to her; if he notices her let out a shaky breath she hadn't realized she'd been holding, he says nothing.

"Your roommate's over there," he tells her, lifting his chin slightly to point in the general area of the booths on the wall opposite them, on the other side of the dance floor.

Tenten straightens and rises onto her toes once again as she follows the gesture with her own gaze, and she lets out another, stronger sigh of relief when she sees Lee talking and gesturing animatedly with Sakura and Ino and a few of their other friends.

"Just give me a minute," she says to Neji as she pushes herself off the counter. Tenten waits for his nod of understanding before turning around and walking to the dance floor, but it's not until she reaches the edge of the crowd spilling over from the dance floor that she realizes how he'd interpreted her request when she feels his hand at her waist, strong chest pressing against her back.

She freezes.

They stand like this for another long moment before she can finally bring herself to look back at him, and what she finds then surprises her. Neji's jaw is still set, thin lips still pressed together, but there is a flicker of doubt in his pale eyes now that she did not notice before, and it is in that moment that Tenten hardens her resolve.

"Let's go," she tells him, and when he nods at her once more, they take the plunge into the crowd, together.

* * *

(Lee turns out to be very supportive of the whole thing, and tells Tenten to let him know if she needs him to do anything at all, to remember to use protection, and that he'll remember to pick up some more milk on his way home after class tomorrow, would she like him to grab anything else?)


	8. examine your zipper

> **examine your zipper**  
>  **Characters:** Hyuuga Neji, Tenten  
>  **Pairings:** NejiTen  
>  **Warnings:** Mild language.  
>  **Rating:** T  
>  **Prompt:** High school teachers AU.  
>  **Word count:** 339  
>  **Summary:** In which Tenten is definitely not checking out the new physics teacher she's sworn to hate, thank you very much.  
>  **Notes:** Another drabble that was originally part of one of the original drafts of _The Secret Life of Teachers_ (which you should totally check out if you are into NejiTen modern day high school teacher AUs) that I enjoyed way too much to abandon entirely.  
>  **Posted:** Thursday 10 November 2016

* * *

The first thing Tenten sees when she walks into the teacher's lounge on the first day of the new school year is Hyuuga Neji's butt.

She's a little taken aback by how nice it looks.

While Neji's back is still turned to her, Tenten takes the moment to appreciate just how well his dark gray slacks sit low on his hips, and how the color is such good contrast against his white button-up dress shirt (he's rolled his sleeves up to his elbows, and she is very appreciative of the view it gives of his forearms) and when he finally turns around and she sees that he's also wearing a simple black tie, her mouth goes dry and she nearly loses it then and there.

Through some form of divine intervention, Tenten manages to hide her momentary lapse in coherency by shifting her weight to one hip, tapping the toe of one sensible black pump against the linoleum tiling. "Are you done?" she asks, gesturing to the copy machine in the corner of the lounge.

"Just finishing up." He's holding a dark thermos in one hand, and brings it to his lips to take a thoughtful sip as he watches her.

His eyes are still fixed on her own, and he's giving her that _look_ again, and Tenten's not entirely sure how she feels about that. So she does the only thing she _can_ do and waits with her arms crossed over her chest until Neji's grabbed his stack of papers, and when he's about to step through the door she calls out, "You're fly's down, by the way."

It backfires on her instantly, of course, when he responds smoothly from the hallway the next moment. "No, it's not, but I appreciate you checking for me."

She manages not to blush, but a very distinct noise of frustration leaves Tenten's throat as she turns around and sets up the copy machine, and she knows then that upcoming school year will no doubt be a very long one indeed.


	9. on why mondays suck (or not)

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> The last thing Neji wants to do on a Monday night is work, particularly when he has a midterm in one of his law classes early tomorrow morning — and, yet, here he is.

> **on why mondays suck (or not)**  
>  **Characters:** Hyuuga Neji, Tenten, Suigetsu, Karin, Inuzuka Kiba, Uchiha Sasuke, Rock Lee  
>  **Pairings:** NejiTen  
>  **Warnings:** Hyuuga Neji, Tenten, Suigetsu, Karin, Inuzuka Kiba, Uchiha Sasuke, Rock Lee  
>  **Rating:** T  
>  **Prompt:** N/A.  
>  **Word count:** 2076  
>  **Summary:**  The last thing Neji wants to do on a Monday night is work, particularly when he has a midterm in one of his law classes early tomorrow morning — and, yet, here he is.  
>  **Notes:** Bartender!Neji as a law student with tattooed sleeves is an incredibly gratuitous and self-indulgent headcanon of mine, and I don't even care. This got a longer than I anticipated it to be, but since I couldn't think of the best way to continue this on the way I wanted (having basically effectively written myself into a corner) I'm going to toss it into this fic collection for now. At least this counts as part of my daily word count for National Novel Writing Month. Also, _waffle fries_.  
>  **Posted:** Monday 14 November 2016.

* * *

**Addendum  
** One time, a girl friend of mine and I went out to the bar until the wee hours of the morning — nothing happened to us, fortunately, but we ended up having a really good conversation with one of the bartenders that night until almost three in the morning, after he basically rescued us from an awkward and uncomfortable situation wherein another patron of the bar was talking to us and doing things that made us incredibly uncomfortable. So this one goes to the bartender whose name I can't quite recall, who saved my friend and I from a weird and gross creep last Halloween and made the best Long Islands I have ever tasted in my entire life.

* * *

As far as being a happy camper is concerned, Hyuuga Neji is, at that very moment, certain that he is the exact antithesis of one.

There are a number of reasons for this.

Foremost among these is the fact that it is a Monday night. Normally, Neji does not mind this: Mondays are normally slow, after all, and mostly uneventful, and with the weekend behind them, the usual college-aged patrons of the bar and club scene (many of whom are in fact his own peers and classmates) leave these dens of debauchery and poor decision-making behind in favor of lecture halls and the quiet offered by libraries and study halls, leaving their seats to be filled by graduate students, sad thirty-somethings, and the occasional business professional instead.

But Monday is not Neji's usual shift — he'd taken it on as a favor for a coworker who'd fallen ill the previous day — but he has a rather significant midterm tomorrow morning he's not sure he's entirely prepared for, and while he'd usually spend his downtime behind the counter finishing up some reading from his textbooks or reviewing notes from for the particular course, the uncharacteristically steady stream of Monday night patrons prevents him from doing any of the above. The fact that he's already had to have security haul away two especially rowdy customers doesn't help, either, nor does the fact that he thinks he may have caught Sasuke's cold, and as far as Neji can tell, his only saving grace is the fact that he's not the only bartender staffed for the evening (Karin and Suigetsu are there behind the bar, too, though it seems to him that they spend more of their time bickering than actually attending to any potential patrons) and after today, he's got the next two nights off before he has to come in again on Thursday.

So with all this in mind, Neji doesn't give it much thought when nine o'clock rolls around and from the corner of his eye he notices a vaguely-familiar young woman taking a seat at the end of the bar as he's wiping down the counter. He discretely tucks the towel underneath the counter and forces the details of the case study he's been memorizing to the back of his mind before plastering on his most debonair smile, and it is only then that he deems it proper to approach her.

"What are you having?" Neji asks as amicably as he can, and he finds himself half-wondering where he's seen her before.

She jerks her head up to look at him when he speaks, and Neji takes the moment to scrutinize her as well as he can without coming across as creepy or weird. Her eyes are bright, though he can't quite tell what color they are in the dim light of the bar, and her hair is thick and falls to the middle of her back in a mass of thick, loose curls. She's dressed plainly, in a V-necked black long-sleeved shirt and a pair of jeans (and he can make out the edge of a word tattooed along her clavicle in graceful looping script, poking out from beneath the collar of her shirt, and makes a mental note to call Sai one of these days in order to get the next part of his own sleeve finished) but he can still make out the lines of muscle in her shoulders and upper arms and torso all the same. It's only then that Neji is aware that she's looking at him curiously, and he takes a half-step back, folds his arms over his chest and rests his weight on one hip while waiting for her to respond.

"It's okay," she tells him after a moment. "I'm good for now — I'm just waiting on someone. I'll order when he gets here."

 _He_. She must be waiting on a date, then, or maybe a boyfriend, or even a guy that just happens to be a friend. It doesn't matter to Neji particularly, but he does make a mental note to keep an eye on her until whoever it is she's waiting for shows up, even if he doesn't doubt for a second that she'd be able to defend herself without a problem if required to so.

(And Neji rather hopes she'll never be put in a situation where she'll have to do so.)

So he nods at her, then, and asks, "Could I get you a glass of water, at the very least?" He waits until she gives him a small nod of consent before he turns away to bring her the beverage, and less than thirty seconds later he's sliding the glass toward her with practiced ease.

"Thanks," she says, reaching for phone and unlocking it as she takes a sip of water. "Hey, you haven't happened to see this guy come in tonight, have you?" And she holds the phone up an inch away from Neji's nose, then, as she watches him expectantly for some sort of reaction.

Neji, for his part, merely narrows his eyes and observes the phone screen carefully. Despite the cracks spiderwebbing across its surface, he can make out the image of a man who appears to be around his own age, with messy dark hair and the faint traces of a beard prickling at the corners of his face, and he can't help but smirk a little as he asks, "Hot Tinder date?"

She scowls and pulls her phone away from him. "Not my idea," she informs him almost sullenly. "My friend took my phone and swiped right for him, and set this up without even telling me. I had absolutely no say in the matter."

Empathy for her situation sparks in Neji's chest, then — Kiba had put him in a similar situation some months before, and it had not been pleasant — and he asks, "Are you sure you don't want something to drink? It would be on the house."

"I don't need pity," she begins, but her voice is noticeably less terse when she adds, "but, uh. What beers do you guys have on tap?" And when Neji lists the options, and hands her a tall glass full of a thick, dark porter a few minutes later, she takes it with a certain amount of gratitude that does not fail to grab his attention.

"Any word from your date?" he asks, and he curses mentally when he realizes that a hint of concern has slipped into his voice. _So much for detached professionalism._

She shakes her head and takes a sip of her beer. "Not yet," she says, "but he should be here soon enough."

Neji remains unconvinced, but nods at her all the same. "Let me know if you need anything," he tells her as he turns away to go help out another customer, and she nods, even as her eyes flicker back to her phone.

"Will do," she replies, and Neji wonders if he's only imagining the resignation he hears in her voice.

* * *

"You seem awfully familiar," she tells him an hour later, poking idly at the basket of fresh waffle fries she's just ordered after deciding that since her date had apparently stood her up, she may as well take advantage of the fact that she's already there to indulge and treat herself. "Do I know you from somewhere?"

Neji shrugs noncommittally, wipes the residual grease on his fingers on his apron as discretely as he can. "That depends," he replies, reaching for his cleaning rag when he spots someone further down the bar slosh their drink onto the counter out of the corner of his eye. "Do you come here often?"

She shakes her head — _no_ — and takes a delicate bite of one of the larger waffle fries in the basket. "It's my first time here," she says after she swallows, before something seems to occur to her and she's narrowing her eyes at him. "Hang on — you're not related to Hinata, are you?"

" _Hyuuga_ Hinata?" He raises one dark eyebrow, pauses long enough in his task of wiping down the counter to glance at her and wait for her to nod in affirmation. "Of course I do: she's my cousin."

At that, she inhales sharply in recognition, and he can't help but glance back at her, gauging her reaction. Even in the dim light of the bar, he can make out the faint pink that tinges her cheeks, and the way she's staring steadily into the remnants of her beer makes him think that she had been observing him intently until just a moment ago. "So _you're_ Neji."

Her reaction is intriguing enough that he approaches her end of the counter again after cleaning up the spill (and glancing around quickly to make sure Suigetsu and Karin are doing their job for once — which, fortunately, they are) and leans down to rest his elbows on the counter in front of her after setting his cleaning rag back beneath the counter. "I'm assuming we know each other, then."

"Yeah." Her eyes flicker up to meet his, then, and he still can't tell if they're gray or brown or something else entirely. "We, uh. Well, that is — "

It takes a moment, but it clicks, and Neji finds himself uncharacteristically embarrassed when he realizes exactly _who_ is seated at the bar in front of him. "Tenten," he says suddenly, cutting her off, and he prays to whatever deity is listening that he isn't blushing. "How have you been?"

He makes sure to cut himself off before he says anything embarrassing, such as the following: _I didn't recognize you sober_ , or, _The last time I saw you was a month ago at Hinata's birthday party where we were both drunk and playing strip poker with my cousin's also-drunk friends._ That would have been bad.

And apparently, she thinks as much, too, because Tenten seems almost grateful that he doesn't bring their last interaction up — and how could you, really, when it involved the fact Neji having been stripped down to his boxers, and Tenten clad in nothing but a low-cut blous, her panties, and a single red knee-high sock — when she finally looks at him, then. "Good." She chews on another fry thoughtfully, then, before she continues. "Been busy, though. School, work, assorted real-world obligations. You know how it is."

"Mm. I can relate." He turns away from her, to make another gin and tonic for the loud redhead and her friend a few seats over from where Tenten's sitting, and when Neji turns back to her, she's finished the last of her porter, and is picking at the last rapidly-cooling remains of her fries. "Can I get you anything else?"

Tenten shakes her head as she shrugs on her brown leather jacket, shoving her phone into one of its pockets as she pushes away from the bar counter. "I'm good," she tells him, and Neji thinks he sees a faint smile curving her lips as she begins fastening the buttons, "but thanks."

"Let me call you a cab, at least."

But she shakes her head again, and reaches for the practical maroon wristlet she'd set on the counter, slipping her hand through the loop (and he doesn't miss the can of pepper spray hanging from the keychain). "My roommate's on his way to pick me up." And then she actually _does_ smile at him, this time, as she turns away, presumably to wait for her ride outside. "Thanks, though. I appreciate it."

"I'm sorry your date didn't show up." Neji doesn't even realize that he's spoken until she looks curiously back at him over her shoulder, and it's all he can do to hold her gaze without betraying his own embarrassment at speaking without thinking, even if he had meant every word he'd said.

But Tenten is the first to look away, then, but not before she grins widely at him. "I'm not," she says simply, raising one hand in a half-wave as she leaves. "Have a good night!"

He remains rooted to the spot as he watches her leave (and in the background he can vaguely hear Suigetsu and Karin arguing about something _again_ ) and it isn't until another patron hails him down that Neji realizes that he hasn't given his exam material a second thought from the moment she first arrived.


	10. great expectations

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> In the beginning, Tenten isn't quite sure why people seem to hold a skinny little boy like Hyuuga Neji in such high regard.

> **great expectations**  
>  **Characters:** Tenten, Hyuuga Neji  
>  **Pairings:** N/A  
>  **Warnings:** N/A  
>  **Rating:** K  
>  **Prompt:** N/A  
>  **Word count:** 540  
>  **Summary:** In the beginning, Tenten isn't quite sure why people seem to hold a skinny little boy like Hyuuga Neji in such high regard.  
>  **Notes:** Originally a draft for another project I'm working on — this particular section doesn't quite fit in with what I have in mind for it, now, and so I've decided to post it here, instead of keeping it hidden away on my laptop.  
>  **Posted:** Saturday 19 November 2016

* * *

When she first meets him, Tenten finds herself terribly underwhelmed by the fact that the acclaimed prodigy of the Hyuuga clan is a small, pale, and slender little boy whose hair prettier than hers. He's shorter than her, too (and she learns later that he's even a few months her junior) and as she watches him from her seat at the back of the classroom, Tenten can't help but wonder if there is really anything that special at all about Hyuuga Neji and his piercing silver gaze.

She receives her answer a few days later, when their class is brought to a nearby training field for their first exercise in one-on-one combat. When her name is called, Tenten moves to the center of the field and waits patiently until she and her assigned partner — a stuttering girl who does not seem to understand how to hold a kunai — are given the signal to begin. She makes short work of her partner, and after receiving a few comments about her technique from their teacher, Tenten moves back to the crowd of students waiting at the edge of the field, where she watches the subsequent matches with little interest until she notices the sudden silence that has fallen over her classmates, and, her interest piqued, she looks toward the center of the field to see what could have captured their attention so thoroughly.

Hyuuga Neji is now standing in the middle of the training field, facing off against another boy who looks considerably more competent than Tenten's partner had been, and it's with a start that she realizes she's much more interested in the outcome of this match than she would like to admit. Neji's small, delicate frame is dwarfed by that of his much bulkier opponent, and there is no question in Tenten's mind that if it were to come down to a battle of sheer physical strength, the likelihood of the Hyuuga prodigy emerging as the victor would be very slim indeed.

After ascertaining that both combatants are ready, their teacher signals for the match to begin, and in that moment Tenten understands why _Hyuuga Neji_ and _prodigy_ are used in such frequent proximity with one another.

The match ends quickly: Neji's opponent surges forward the moment the signal is given, and Tenten isn't surprised to see Neji easily sidestep the initial rush and move behind the other boy. But what she doesn't expect is the way the veins around his eyes suddenly become more pronounced, and the way Neji gracefully spins around the larger boy until he's behind him once again, where his pale, bony hands flash into view once, twice, thrice, precisely striking along his opponent's spine, and Neji's opponent crumples onto the grass, immobilized and in shock.

Tenten watches Neji pointedly ignore the praises and congratulatory remarks heaped upon him by their classmates when he returns, choosing instead to take a seat far from the main body of students clustered around the edge of the training field, and as she watches him settle into a meditative pose while the practice battles continue on, she decides that maybe the pale little boy with the pretty, pretty hair might actually be a little bit impressive after all.


	11. revelations of a certain kind

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> The realization that neither of them are quite children anymore is more of a shock than she'd thought it would be.

 

> **revelations of a certain kind**  
>  **Characters:** Hyuuga Neji, Tenten, Rock Lee, Might Gai  
>  **Pairings:** NejiTen  
>  **Warnings:** General awkwardness, and perhaps some potential secondhand embarrassment.  
>  **Rating:** T  
>  **Prompt:** N/A.  
>  **Word count:** 925  
>  **Summary:** The realization that neither of them are quite children anymore is more of a shock than she'd thought it would be.  
>  **Notes:** Yet another section from a project that will probably never see the light of day if I don't figure out a proper way of repurposing it, so obviously into the drabble collection it goes. (That being said, Tenten isn't the only one who finds the idea of Neji being able to grow facial hair utterly hilarious, despite the fact that it's a fairly logical outcome of puberty. So.)  
>  **Posted:** Sunday 20 November 2016.

* * *

They're on a mission in the deserts of the Land of Wind when she learns that Hyuuga Neji is capable of growing facial hair, and Tenten isn't entirely sure how to react to this information.

It's midday, and they've come across a natural outcropping of pale yellow sandstone when Gai-sensei decides that they take a much-needed reprieve from the harsh glare of the desert sun. They take shelter in a small, shallow cave Lee finds at the base of the rock face, and it's as they're passing around a skin of water that had been sealed within one of her scrolls that Tenten notices the small droplets of water clinging to the fine, dark hairs of his upper lip.

 _What a_ _strange thing to notice_ , she thinks as she takes the water skin and raises it to her own mouth, and she's not sure why it has taken her so long to become aware of in the first place, but the fact remains that Hyuuga "too-pretty-for-his-own-good" Neji has facial hair. The sudden mental image of him with a full mustache and beard causes her to choke on her water as she tries to fight back a laugh, and when her teammates huddle around her in concern, it's all she can do to pull herself together and assure them she's fine.

Lee and Gai-sensei seem to believe her and leave it at that, but Tenten doesn't miss the way Neji's moonlight-silver gaze lingers on her as they pack up and prepare to move back out — it's not until she makes a face and sticks her tongue out at him that Neji frowns and finally turns from her, and she uses the moment to admire the curve of his jaw, the bob of his Adam's apple when he swallows, before she realizes she's staring and looks away quickly.

For the rest of the mission, she refuses to look at him unless absolutely necessary. She's careful to make sure her sudden simultaneous fascination with, and awkwardness around, his body doesn't interfere with their work, but it doesn't change the fact that Neji is growing up, and Tenten feels entirely unprepared for what that knowledge might entail.

* * *

It's not long after that Tenten realizes that somewhere along the line, Neji really is well on his way to becoming a man.

She sees it first in the smaller things — the new deepness of his voice, the breadth of his shoulders, the way he now has to lower his gaze considerably to make eye contact when speaking to her — but it isn't until after a mission, when she's helping him clean up a kunai wound that cuts across his back after an encounter with enemy ninja while Gai-sensei and Lee scout ahead, kneeling behind him in the dirt while carefully disinfecting the gash and wrapping a roll of linen bandage around the muscular planes of his pale chest and back, that she quite _understands_ it, even if she can't quite articulate _how_ she does, and she curses silently to herself every time her fingers brush against his skin and tremble in response to the contact.

If Neji notices, he says nothing as Tenten tends to his wounds, and simply sits silently while holding his long hair out of the way as she works, and somehow, she manages to maintain her composure until she finishes. She ties off the end of the bandage and sets the roll back in her pack, before absentmindedly placing her hand on his shoulder, silently letting him know she's finished.

He nods in acknowledgement and taciturn thanks, in his typical Neji way, but Tenten doesn't expect him to then cover her hand with his own, the action and pressure firm enough to keep her rooted in place, nor does she expect him to twist his upper body around as much as he is able to without wincing in order to look at her directly.

"Tenten," he says, his silvery eyes meeting hers intently (and she wonders if she has just imagined his gaze flickering to her lips for the briefest of moments) while the rest of his expression remains neutral, and she is entirely unsure what to think or do when Neji raises himself up onto his own knees and presses his lips against hers.

His lips are dry and slightly chapped against her own, and that is the only thought Tenten is able to register before Neji pulls away from her, leans down to pick his shirt up off the ground. She watches him in shocked silence as he pulls it back on and adjusts his hair, retying it loosely at the nape of his neck before standing up and looking down at her.

But, no, that's not entirely true — it's not _her_ that he looks at, but rather the patch of earth in front of her knees, some unknown point just beyond her left elbow, the patch of grass beside beside her hip, and in that moment she realizes that for the first time in _his_ life, Hyuuga Neji may actually be embarrassed, and somewhat ashamed.

"I'm sorry," he tells her, and it is only then that he allows himself to let their eyes meet.

Something passes between them, then, that Tenten isn't sure she can, or even _wants_ to, put a name to, and the words are out of her mouth before she knows what's happening.

"Don't be!" she blurts, and the smile he gives her, then, is tender and awkward all at once.


	12. those are pearls that were his eyes

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> She remembers eyes like cold starlight, when she thinks of her childhood, and very little else.

 

> ****those are pearls that were his eyes  
>  **Characters:** Tenten, Rock Lee, Hyuuga Hizashi, Might Gai  
>  **Pairings:**  N/A  
>  **Warnings:** Offscreen death(s), half-forgotten attempts at pretentious imagery and symbolism, and embarrassing amounts of ambiguity and vague plot points on the part of the author. Maybe some vaguely purple prose, too, if you really want to get nitpicky about it.  
>  **Rating:** T  
>  **Prompt:** _"I pledge my fealty to you."_ — royalty AU  
>  **Word count:** 1264  
>  **Summary:** She remembers eyes like cold starlight, when she thinks of her childhood, and very little else.  
>  **Notes:** I started writing this way back at the end of August, immediately after returning home from a five-week trip to India, and no matter how long I stared at this document, I couldn't for the _life_ of me remember what sort of story I had been trying to tell in my jet-lagged state, beyond the fact that this was apparently a response to a royalty AU prompt I had seen. Which is why it's being posted here. Heh. Also, title is a line taken from T.S. Eliot's "The Waste Land".  
>  **Posted:** Sunday 20 November 2016.

* * *

_"I pledge my fealty to you."_

* * *

When Tenten is four years old, her small village is destroyed in a bandit attack. She does not remember it well, though sometimes when the night is darkest and most still, and sleep remains elusive, she closes her eyes, and wonders if she can almost smell the way the scent of copper had filled the air, taste the heaviness of ash on her tongue, hear the soft whisper of her mother's last words as she'd hidden Tenten beneath the pile of old, threadbare blankets in the corner that she had not yet had a chance to repair.

What Tenten remembers is this: how swiftly the village had grown silent in the aftermath of the attack, and how sharp the _clack-clacking_ of hooves against the scorched earth had sounded in her ears day later. She and the other lone survivor of their village — the neighbor's son, a boy her own age named Lee whom she'd played with sometimes — had been discovered in the wreckage by a group of soldiers on patrol, and she remembers the curiously pale eyes of the captain observing them coolly from his saddle before snapping to focus on the man beside him.

"I leave them in your care, Gai," he had said, tugging on the reins of his horse to turn the animal around with one hand, signaling to the rest of the patrol with the other. "Take them back to Konoha. See to it that they are cleaned and fed and looked after, and join us again when they are properly housed — the rest of us will keep moving."

The other man only nodded once in understanding before leaping from the saddle of his own horse to land nimbly in front of them in an easy crouch. He had smiled at them, then, and Tenten remembers wondering what the tall man had done to get his teeth so shiny and white.

"There's no need to be scared anymore," he had said gently, offering a large, powerful hand to each of them. "You're fine, now. You're safe."

And Tenten remembers that large hand enveloping her own, and being pulled into the expanse of what was no doubt a broad and solid chest beneath the cool metal of battle-worn armor, and murmuring something — _"Okay."_ — against the warm skin of the man's neck, and watching the back of the captain with the strange pale eyes as he rode off into the distance.

* * *

Tenten never does quite forget those eyes, really, but she imagines, sometimes, that she can feel the intensity of their moonlight-and-silver gaze watching her at times — in the market place, at the armory, the heavy stillness of the old libraries and at the edge of the ancient wood — and it is enough to make her wonder.

(Nor does she ever see the pale-eyed captain again.)

* * *

In the end, Gai never goes back to rejoin the patrol. He opens his home to Tenten and Lee and takes on the task of raising them himself instead, and nearly ten years pass before it occurs to her that she has never asked him why.

"My patrol fell in battle," Gai says when she finally asks him one evening, "shortly after I brought you both to Konoha. I received word about it as I was preparing to head out and rejoin them." His voice is even and measured, but Tenten and Lee both know that though Gai has lost comrades before, he still feels each loss as keenly as he would a dagger through the heart.

Even so, Tenten is grateful that Gai does not ask what had prompted her question, and that night she goes to sleep with the memory of pale, piercing eyes watching her from across the training grounds seared bone-deep into her dreams.

* * *

When she is made a squire, Tenten swears her oaths and fealty to the service of House Hyuuga under the somber scrutiny of a hundred pairs of silver eyes as sharp and cold and bright as starlight.

* * *

By the time Tenten is fifteen, she has made a name for herself as a marksman with no equal among the other squires, and hardly anyone is surprised when she is knighted less than a year later. Lee, too, has made a name for himself over the years in terms of sheer strength and power (they'd been knighted together, and she recalls Gai's blubbering enthusiasm and joy during the ceremony) and it is with a hint of fond amusement that Tenten hears the unrestrained pride in Gai's voice when he informs them that Lady Tsunade has personally requested them for a mission of top priority.

"My beautiful lotus!" Gai says as they make their way up the stairs to the Hokage's tower. "My handsome beast! You never fail to make me proud!"

He repeats it over and over again, interspersed occasionally with the occasional exclamation concerning "the springtime of youth", and as they near the door leading to the Hokage's personal study, Tenten is about to tell him to quiet down when something catches her attention, and she suddenly finds herself frozen in place under the scrutiny of a young man with a familiar sharp and silvery gaze.

"I could hear you from the moment you set foot in the tower," the man says (and he can't be any older than Lee or herself, she thinks) as he shifts his gaze to look at Gai, and Tenten takes the opportunity to compose herself back into some semblance of relaxed nonchalance, "and the entire time you were climbing the stairs — I would have thought you'd learned some amount of restraint over the years."

Gai snorts and folds his arms across his broad chest. "Nonsense! You should never hold back — one must always do things wholeheartedly, while fully embracing the exuberance of youth!"

Tenten rolls her eyes at the exclamation — an automatic reflex, now, after years of living and training with Gai and Lee — and somehow the action is enough for the young man to look back to Tenten once more. He observes her almost detachedly for a moment before his gaze moves on to Lee, and Tenten releases a breath she hadn't realized she'd been holding.

For a moment, she wonders if it is the work of some strange magic, because the man standing before her, now, bears a resemblance to the captain she recalls from her youth (long dead, now, Tenten reminds herself) so uncanny it cannot be a coincidence. And yet, she thinks, the similarities between them are undeniable, in the shape of his jaw and the refined aristocracy of his features, the length of dark hair pulled away from his face by the simple leather thong resting against the nape of his neck. Beside her, Gai is speaking animatedly to this new man who is familiar-but-not, as Lee tries loudly to interject as well as he can wherever possible, but it isn't until she hears her name that Tenten is able to pull herself away from her thoughts.

"Tenten, Lee," Gai begins, and once again the note of affectionate pride that curls around his boisterous voice when he speaks does not go unnoticed, "it is my pleasure and honor to introduce you to Lord Neji of the illustrious House Hyuuga, son of my dear captain, comrade, and friend, the late Lord Hizashi."

It is then that Tenten recognizes the iciness of the young lord's gaze, and as she and Lee bow to him in deference, she finds herself wondering at the strangeness of her fate.


	13. first impressions of the worst sort

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> On the first day of winter, a witch moves in next door.

> **first impressions of the worst kind**  
>  **Characters:** Tenten, Hyuuga Neji  
>  **Pairings:** N/A  
>  **Warnings:** Neji is kind of a dick.  
>  **Rating:** K  
>  **Prompt:** N/A  
>  **Word count:** 562  
>  **Summary:** On the first day of winter, a witch moves in next door.  
>  **Notes:** With exams coming up in the next few weeks, and the free time I have available to write decreasing proportionally, have another partially-abandoned WIP that I am currently in the process of mentally rewriting and outlining instead. :D  
>  **Posted:** Saturday 26 November 2016

* * *

(On the first day of winter, a witch moves in next door.)

* * *

It is December when a red-and-white moving truck rumbles into the driveway empty ranch-style house next door, though Tenten doesn't pay it much mind beyond pausing in her task of scraping the ice off of her old blue pickup as she watches it shudder to a halt before her gaze lands on the sleek black sports car silently trailing close behind. With the driveway of the old gray ranch-style house taken up by the bulk of the moving truck, the sports car parks near the mailbox separating their properties, and Tenten watches it long enough to see a tall dark-haired figure wearing a sleek black leather jacket — whom she presumes to be her new neighbor — emerge from the driver's-side door with an almost unnatural effortless grace before she realizes she's spent too long staring and needs to finish clearing the ice off her windshield or she'll be late for work.

As she pulls out of her driveway and passes the house next door ten minutes later, Tenten sees her neighbor giving directions to the movers from the front porch, and decides she'll stop by at some point to introduce herself as a sign of goodwill, and maybe bring over a cake or a tray of brownies, too.

* * *

Nearly a full week passes before Tenten is finally able to make time to introduce herself to her new neighbor, and on Friday afternoon, after she ascertains that the black sports car is still on the driveway (and thus a sign that her neighbor must still be at home) she bundles herself up in layers of coats and sweaters, pulls on her favorite pair of boots and thick woolen mittens, and makes her way to not-quite-empty house next door with a tupperware box full of freshly-baked lemon bread in her hands. The soles of her boots land heavily on the old wood steps of the porch as she climbs up to the front door, disturbing a pair of crows that had been perched on the posts of the railing of the wraparound porch, and Tenten is starting to feel a bit guilty for bothering them when the front door opens less then thirty seconds after she first rings the doorbell and she comes face-to-face with probably the most handsome man she has ever met.

She gets so distracted by his thin lips, the sharp angles and aristocratic arches of his face as he looks down at her expectantly that for one very long moment, Tenten quite forgets to introduce herself. It isn't until she realizes that her grip on the tupperware box has gone lax and her freshly-made bread is quickly getting cold that she remembers, and she composes herself as quickly as she is able, praying that the man before her hasn't noticed her lapse in attention.

"Hey, good afternoon!" she says brightly. "I'm Tenten, I live next door."

The man's pale gaze moves slowly from the top of her head to the toes of her well-worn brown boots, before his eyes snap up to meet hers, lips pressed together in a hard, grim line. "Go away," he says, and slams the door in her face.

Tenten decides, then, that she doesn't think he's that good looking after all.


	14. before the memories tear us into pieces

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Tenten discovers she's pregnant after the war; the child is Neji's, and remembering him becomes far more painful than she'd ever imagined.

****before the memories tear us into pieces  
**Characters:** Tenten, Tsunade, Haruno Sakura, Rock Lee, Hyuuga Hiashi, Hyuuga Hinata, Hyuuga Hanabi.  
**Pairings:** Nejiten.  
**Warnings:** Offscreen death(s), half-forgotten attempts at pretentious imagery and symbolism, and embarrassing amounts of ambiguity and vague plot points on the part of the author. Maybe some vaguely purple prose, too, if you really want to get nitpicky about it. Also, it's really blatantly incomplete, and I am very sorry for that. :x  
**Rating:** T  
**Prompt:**  Pregnant!Tenten. Yeah.  
**Word count:** 886  
**Summary:** Tenten discovers she's pregnant after the war; the child is Neji's, and remembering him becomes far more painful than she'd ever imagined.  
**Notes:** This was actually meant to be a standalone fic on its own, but unfortunately I don't think I'll be able to finish it anymore, thanks to all the other ideas for stories currently taking over my mind. It's for this reason everything listed here seems so fragmented and all over the place — it was never completed, and probably never will be. Still, I love the idea of this story way too much to give it up completely, so who knows? Perhaps I will end up writing a variant of this, after all (well, I'd _like_ to, at the very least, but whether or not that is something that comes to fruition after all remains to be seen). That being said, for those of you keeping up with _The Secret Life of Teachers_ : I think you'll be glad to know that I finished doing some major overhaul and revision work on it last week, which resulted in at least 10k and an actual _plot_ being added to the current chapters, so. Please head over there and check out the changes, if you're so interested, and let me what you think! The next chapter of that should hopefully be up relatively soon. :D  
Additionally: assuming that Neji died on Naruto's birthday (10 October) and Neji and Tenten did the do at least a week or so prior, 07 July ends up being an almost perfect date for the end of a full-term pregnancy, assuming that conception occurred around this time, and also fits well with the name I ultimately ended up selecting for Tenten's daughter — _Nana_ — means "seven" in Japanese; there is a Japanese tradition, too, of naming children based on their day of birth, and given the obvious reference in Tenten's name (i.e. the idea of "ten out of ten", etc.) it seemed fitting to follow the general pattern. :p Also, it's only a few days after Neji's birthday (03 July) so there's that bittersweet heartache factor at work there, too. Heh.  
**Posted:** Sunday 11 December 2016.

* * *

She does not remember much of the funeral.

It isn't as if she wants to, anyway. There is no need for further reminders of what she — what _they_ — had lost.

But she goes, all the same: she wakes up that morning and gets dressed, walks beside Lee and stands in front of the graves of the fallen, and she does not cry when she sees the headstone, when their comrades' hands settle heavily on her shoulders and there are people murmuring condolences and apologies that she doesn't really hear.

What she does hear, however, is the way her voice remains even and steady when she tells him she won't ever forgive him, and in time, it proves to be the only thing she ever really remembers from that day.

* * *

On the seventh day of the seventh month of the year, she goes into labor. Hours later, the warm night sky is the color of freshly bruised skin, and with one final, tremendous _push_ , Tenten becomes a mother.

"Congratulations," Tsunade-sama tells her, the bow of her mouth curved in a fond smile, eyes glinting with unabashed pride as she places the newborn on Tenten's abdomen. "It's a girl."

Tenten, too exhausted to say anything, simply smiles as she watches as the older woman begins to wipe away blood and fluids from her daughter's skin with gentle, practiced ease. She's glad the former Hokage hadn't described her as beautiful — the baby's skin is red and wrinkled, her hair a dark tuft that sits almost comically upon her tiny head, and Tenten decides that her daughter really is quite ugly.

She loves her anyway.

* * *

"What are you going to name her?" Sakura asks quietly.

With a noncommittal shrug, Tenten keeps her gaze focused on her daughter's sleeping face. "Nana," she says. "She was born on the seventh of July — it seemed fitting."

Sakura is not satisfied. "What are you going to name her?" she repeats, raising her eyes slowly to carefully meeting Tenten's gaze. The unasked question hangs heavily in the air, and even Lee has fallen silent as he waits for her reply.

Long moments pass before Tenten attempts to respond, the half-answers and splinters of thought dying on her tongue every time she opens her mouth. Sakura and Lee say nothing, for which she is grateful, and she appreciates the strength of their silent camaraderie she she struggles to find the words she is searching for.

Her daughter wakes, then, opening her large eyes with a slowness she could swear was deliberate, and as Tenten meets the newborn's gaze, she realizes that the answer is far closer to her heart than she could have ever known.

* * *

Tenten is not surprised when Hyuuga Hiashi comes to see her later that afternoon with his own pale-eyed daughters in tow, and meets his silver gaze with her own.

"Congratulations," he tells her, folding his arms over his chest. His smile is strained, bitter and genuine all at once, Tenten thinks that she has never seen such a powerful man seem so fragile before.

Her gaze flickers down briefly, to where her daughter nurses at her breast, blissfully unaware of the tension that winds through the room, and Tenten decides, then, that it is best if she gets this over with as soon as possible.

"Her name is Hyuuga Nana," Tenten replies in turn, and she doesn't miss the way Hinata and Hanabi stiffen at her response, how Hiashi does little more than close his eyes and nod.

"I see." He opens his eyes, and Tenten wonders at the regret she sees in them. "You understand that she would be a member of the branch family, then."

Tenten all but growls at him. "Like _hell_ you're going to brand _my_ daughter like an animal for slaughter." _Like you did to your own nephew_ , she does not say.

It isn't as if she needs to, after all.

Hiashi's mouth tightens at the corners in response to her statement, and Tenten is somewhat pleased to note that his fingers clutch at the sleeves of his robe that much tighter. "We are considering the abolishment of the branch house," he says, and she gapes at him.

" _Considering_?"

* * *

The pale eyes and dark, pin-straight hair of the Hyuuga are not the only things Nana inherits from her father. She is a quiet, solemn child, rarely prone to crying even as an infant, and much prefers to observe the going-ons of the world than engage in them, deigning to abstain from active participation unless absolutely necessary. For a long time Tenten wonders, in vague half-concern, if her daughter had inherited the Hyuugas' cool detachment and aloof personality, as well, so it comes as quite a relief when they go to visit Hinata in the hospital after Boruto's birth, and three-year-old Nana won't stop staring and smiling at the baby for the entirety of their visit.

It's around then that Tenten begins to notice Nana's inherited her father's inherent genius as well, and when Nana's refusal to take a bath one evening results in an accidental expulsion of chakra from her tenketsu with enough force to send her flying through the bathroom wall, Tenten decides that perhaps the time has come for her to see Hiashi again after all.


	15. nothing is true and everything is permitted

**nothing is true and everything is permitted  
** **Characters:** Hyuuga Neji, Tenten  
 **Pairings:** NejiTen  
 **Warnings:** N/A  
 **Rating:** T  
 **Prompt:** _Assassins's Creed_ AU. Sort of.  
 **Word count:** 742  
 **Summary:** Hidden Blades are exactly the wrong sort of weapons to bring on missions such as these.  
 **Notes:** I… literally have nothing to say to justify this — I was on my way home after going on an emergency trip to the Indian grocer's for mango pulp when my brain went, "Okay, but wouldn't Tenten absolutely _love_ having an Assassin's Hidden Blade?" Which, yes, she would, but it didn't stop there.  
"What if Neji was an Assassin, too?" And then I got home, and tried getting some coursework done, but after a while the idea wouldn't disappear from my my mind, and I wrote this quickly during my last study break. Which is why it sucks (literally spent most of my time writing this trying to figure out the fucking dress), but, hey. At least I did it.  
Not sure if I'm going to continue this, but. Yeah. Let me know what you think! (I have another spies/assassins AU WIP, too, but that one is still in the works. Heh.  
 **Posted:** Saturday 14 January 2017.

* * *

"You are aware the advances made in feats of engineering in the modern era have rendered such archaic types of weapons obsolete and unnecessary, I assume."

There is a note of amusement in Neji's voice that Tenten does not miss, beneath his normally dry and clinical tone, and she looks back at her partner over her shoulder with a cheeky grin. " _Obviously_ ," she chirps, fastening the leather straps of her Hidden Blade and rolling her wrist against it experimentally. "But there's a very good reason the Brotherhood's used these for as long as they have, you know — there's something to be said for tradition."

Unconvinced, Neji frowns at her as he adjusts the sleeves of his tailored black suit, cufflinks glinting almost dangerously in the low light of their shared hotel room. "There is also a reason they've undergone so many modifications over the centuries; I doubt you would still like the Hidden Blades quite as much if you were required to mutilate your hand in order to wield one."

Tenten rolls her eyes. "I know, I know," she huffs. "Doesn't mean I can't like or use them, though."

"Except you can't," Neji counters. He steps toward her, and holds out one hand expectantly. "Not on this mission."

" _Spoil sport_ ," she mutters, loosening the leather straps. The Hidden Blade slips off a moment later, and begrudgingly, she deposits the device into her partner's waiting hand. "There. Happy?"

Without warning, Neji's fingers close around her own, and he pulls her close, until their bodies are pressed flush against each other and his free hand is trailing down her side. "I would be happier if you were better _equipped_ for this mission," he murmurs, cool lips brushing distractingly against the shell of her ear, and he squeezes her thigh once, quickly, for emphasis.

It takes everything Tenten has to keep herself from gasping at the flood of sensation the simple action sends coursing through her veins. Somehow, she manages to glare at him instead, closing her fingers around his wrist and pulling his hand up to settle on the flair of her hipbone. "And I'd be happier if I could actually _move_ in this thing — do you know how much a ballgown restricts your movements? Particularly when it's a mermaid-style dress?"

"No, but I was under the impression that some type of garment compatible with combat situations had been integrated into its design, as a precaution against the worst-case scenario."

"That's not the point!"

Raising one dark eyebrow in question, Neji takes a step back and rakes his pale gaze over his partner in slow and silent appraisal. The dress is both elegant in its simplicity and deceptive in its deadliness, he thinks, much like the Assassin wearing it: a gown that follows the sleek curves of Tenten's body like a second skin before gently flaring out at a point just below the middle of her thighs. The smooth expanse of black fabric is broken only once, by the thick band of bright gold embroidery circling her waist matching the pattern that decorates the dress's high collar — a clever little bit of design by the Konoha Brotherhood's development team that serves to effectively hide the gown's hidden inner seam, the detachment of which would allow the garment to transform from a cumbersome disguise into a catsuit with no limitations on flexibility or range of motion.

All in all, the gown did its job well, in terms of both practicality and function (even if it was true that she couldn't hide any weapons on her person while wearing it), and Neji tells her just as much. "You look nice," he adds, quietly.

Tenten purses her lips (she's coated them with a soft, neutral shade of some type of shimmery gloss for this mission). "Don't think I didn't catch you staring at my ass, Hyuuga."

Unabashed, Neji merely shrugs, slides a hand into his pocket as he tosses the confiscated Hidden Blade onto the bed with the other. "You look _very_ nice."

"Whatever." Tenten turns away from him with a roll of her eyes, gives her appearance a last once-over in the floor length mirror on the other side of the room. When she faces him again, her expression is schooled into a mask of polite neutrality. "Ready?"

Closing his eyes, Neji takes a long, deep breath. Upon opening them, his own countenance is a mirror image of his partners. "Yes."

"Let's go."


End file.
